Benefits of having "trusted / high quality" user recognition

Covered. I think I said almost the same above - you design it to be 90 - 95% good,which means it's slightly gameable. But you counter that by making sure removal is also to-the-point, and some kind of scrutineers exist for "surprising" results where there is a widespread suspicion of gaming or undue conclusion.

Sounds good to me. How about adding process for dealing with the exceptions? I think you probably know what they are by now.